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It’s been a season of win-lose here in Gritropolis. This, so pointedly captured by this weekend—on the court, on stage & sigh, at the movies.

Having a Pyrrhic victory may be fine for some. Not for me. Sure, that fat head no talent Tyler Perry, finally let a woman wear the dress. But his dreck came in number one at the box office. The one solace I have is that all people buying tickets for that movie have been tagged by Homeland Security, as no threat whatsoever to US intelligence.

While Serena Williams blew up at the US Open ( tennis ) for what she felt was an umpire’s wrong call on a foot fault*, Kanye West retained his title as Biggest Loudmouth in Music. Homeboy still believe he can hit that Beyonce groove thang, soon as the girl see he prettier than Jay Z. Or delusional that Taylor Swift has jungle fever & digs stupid guys. Either way, he on crack. One thing I know for certain—Taylor Swift’s videos are better than Tyler Perry’s. Watching hers only get you tagged by the local Fish & Game Commission. And that’s so they can call you for a donation.

If Serena can be fined an amount the equivalent of her tennis shoe allowance for a Grand Slam tournament (just kidding-I know she gets them gratis), why can’t that ahole Kanye get fined by the FCC. Why? for being an ahole in prime time. I bet Mr. Obama’s backhanded smack of Kanye got more play than anything he might’ve said publicly about Joe Wilson (R-Rep. South Carolina). He probably just got an atta boy from Rush Limbaugh—ha ha ha ad infinitum. Times like these I wish James Brown was still alive to advise some entertainers. Not the sports James Brown. Or the other sports James Brown. Or one of the Steve Smiths. The late great King of Soul. Of course!

There’s more, but I like to stick to the headlines. I do feel compelled to inject a future story—Prince Fielder, the really talented & large (+ packing a few more lbs. than needed ) first baseman of your Milwaukee Brewers, is likely to be trade bait over the Winter. Team very interested resides in Boston. Since they are allowed to make any move & be praised for it by buttboys at ESPN, I can’t fight the power. It is true, they have gone too long without a big fat guy to play first for them, since Mo Vaughn left. And Pig Papi Ortiz admitted his ” protein drinks ” only enable him to do one thing well—hit v. the Yankees.

Speaking of baseball, who won the World Series? The season must have ended while I was on my retreat in Nepal, searching for the home of Deechen Lachman.** I had no joy finding it, though I did run into the Dalai Lama.† When I asked him if he knew her, he said vexedly—” she’s Australian, you moron.” If I’d have known the MLB season wound up early so ESPN could go football 24/7, I’d have asked the Dalai Lama about the WS. Hey! he was all ready pissed off, I had nothing to lose there.

All I can get from ESPN is football f*gs, enabling gamblers with point spreads & injury reports & sucking up to coach. They are stat diligent to the point of being anal. I’m amazed they don’t do the Pop Warner games. Must be a licensing fee conflict. Or maybe the authorities draw an age line for boys locker rooms those bozo can invade. Why don’t I just Google? have I mentioned the page-load times for me & this old dial up here on the Copper Line yet this post? Oh look! there’s some mail from the Dept. of Homeland Security. . ..

Let me get this straight. There are some people upset about racism in the new movie Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The pervasive destructive disregard for life, property and national treasures, that’s okay? Not to mention the dogged possibility of damage to Megan Fox. And the veritable lake size puddles of oil they leave behind. I’d be an idiot of the same stripe as they are, to read as if I’d ever condone racism. But the superficial, knee jerk reactions of such people do nothing but actually pour some of that bot fluid on the flames.

They learned a big word once—stereotype. But they learned it in the context of an explanation with negative connotations. Am I even allowed to use negative? Stereotypes, as with the verbal equivalent, the cliché, exist for one reason—they are experiential human shorthand. If it waddles like a duck, we then see a duck, not some poor kid in a mascot suit. Unless of course, it is some kid in a mascot suit. Personally, I have seen just about every stereotype in real life, these jerkoffs complain about. It would be fine with them to have a white trash moron, an Italian mob goombah, a Jewish anything, but not a person of color who isn’t in Mensa? Could’ve been worse, they could’ve had Tyler Perry in drag Transformer. . ..

Bullshit. They are the people with the problem. It is so intense of a problem, they see racist in the use of the word people. In the Sixties, I was a second generation Italian, a teenager with long hair, a beard, wore sunglasses & drove a Corvette. If you knew anything about life before you were born or say, Heaven forfend, read a book, you’d know that was a set of characteristics sure to get you special notice by authorities. Luckily, I never did get any harassment. Because I was lucky and behaved myself, and never got caught the few times I power shifted, burnt rubber and wore a hundred miles off my tires. The only time was when a guy on my softball team, a police sergeant, advised me to be careful of the company I kept. He was right too. And I did. However, if you don’t think I got a taste of prejudice back then, you are culturally bereft. Sure, I had the ability and the option to “clean up my act,” a popular phrase of that era. Oddly, even when I did, I was still the same iconoclastic individual. My attitudes and foibles were internal. Have some groups had unfortunate extra attention? the sad answer is yes. As always, I ain’t here to do an exegesis of race relations. Just to point stuff out. Did I look like a small time drug dealer though? you betcha. Was I? Nope and that rhymes with—okay, but just that one time. And I was drunk. . ..

But including a dumbass black character in a movie is anathema? What! there no stupid blacks? how do you explain Martin Lawrence? You obviously don’t listen to WFAN. While possibly not the only choice for a movie character, if it’s an urban scene, what fits more for the point it makes? an African American with GQ cover looks and two doctorates? or some street thug. All y’all are just hater players. BTW why are you even at that movie? oh—Megan Fox! Sexist ahole huh. Or just hetero and enjoying yourself. I’d say lighten up, but I’m no racialist, you get the picture. Maybe. . ..

Manny Ramirez, eagerly ( LOL ) awaiting his return to Mannywood and the Dodger lineup, has caught some new attention himself. This because he is a stereotype—of a ballplayer caught using performance enhancing drugs. Apparently someone he’s been associated with has a father who is a doctor. A doctor can write prescriptions for said PED. Voila! This conduit from outside the US, up into Florida and servicing predominantly Latino jocks, is now under scrutiny. Again may I state: Boston, you are hypocrites & phonies. Have a nice day.

Wowie zowie! God didn’t waste anytime with the dead celebrity trifecta. Banging them out like ARod in batting practice. Only God can do it in the actual games too. Yeah sure Alex has had some good at bats the last few days—90 games to go hombre. Sorry, got off track there. So, Farrah Fawcett, Ed MacMahon, and Michael Jackson are at the Pearly Gates. Saint Peter sees Farrah, looks at his big book and says—-” Angel! go right in.” Ed steps up. Peter says-” Heyo!—you have all ready won. Go on in.” Then he looks at Michael Jackson, looks at the book. Looks at Michael again, then back at the book,* he asks — ” Moonwalk, eh! you were an astronaut?” Michael squeaks, ” Uh yes. Yes I was. An astronaut.” St. Peter smiles, ” Welcome to Heaven.” St. Paul throws Peter a look. Peter looks at paul and says – “Hey have you ever heard him sing She’s Out of My Life? The way his voice breaks at the end. That’s Heaven.”

It seems Manny being Manny was aided and abetted by performance enhancing substances†[please see below]. All those clutch, drop the Yankees hits while with the Boston team, were bullshit. Now, while that city and its players enjoy the rewards their envy and hypocrisy continue to provide them, they need to admit they are phonies. If they can hate on and gloss the NYY as the evil empire, riddled with cheaters, then they themselves are surely the Weasel World of sports. Yankees suck? you m*****r f****rs suck and blow.

I have been watching, and for a short youthful period, playing baseball since 1956. I steeped myself in the game via what media was available then— TV, radio, books, magazines and baseball cards. It never seemed enough—sure baseball was talked year round—with friends. Nothing like the current media, carpet bombing 24 hours a day, seven days a week; pervasive and invasive coverage. Really, it’s too much. It encourages excesses and it gets them. From everyone involved.

Too much and yet the magpies who pass for talk show hosts on all sports radio outlets, discrete team owned tv, and networks like ESPN & Fox, turned a sycophantic blind eye to some tried and true practices. Amphetamines before games and shopping trips after—lining up groupies for stars. AND the last 20 plus seasons of slowly unfolding revelations of anabolic steroids and human growth hormones (HGH)usage by the big names of the big leagues.

It has resulted in the breeding of hack writers such as Selena Roberts (Sports Illustrated) who indicted the Duke Lacrosse team for party fouls at the rapist level before they were found NOT guilty*, to her present exposé book of Alex Rodriguez. These jock sniffing carrion eaters turn on you faster than a whirling dervish and they care not a whit if they are subsequently off the mark. The bullshit “court of public opinion” is the demographic they court. The lowest common denominator, once the exclusive stained and chawn turf of the National Enquirer, a newspaper no self respecting journalist would’ve been employed by when I was in J school, is catered to via sensationalism passing for reporting and writing.

It has also grown the barely literate radio talk host, most of whom have never read a book. If they have, it was about sports and no doubt, at the level of a fifth grader. Video games began cutting into the sports dollar heavily during the eighties and in some cases supplanted it for youth recreational time and bucks. The spawn of gamers are the announcers of today’s media. Dumb as rocks without the charm and personality. The majority of athletes, even less so. Easy to see how in this environment a clownish thug such as Manny Ramirez can thrive and pull the double-knit polyfiber over the eyes (and the limited intellect within their heads) of the feral media. One moment they are sucking up, the next, sucking the life out of their prey—the superstar, over paid and undereducated.

Major league baseball itself is led by a septuagenarian former team owner and used car salesman. He needs to step down; he never should have been there to need to do so. Baseball needs restructuring, it is at once archaic and contemporary, the new parts grafted on top of its decay, an aging Hollywood actor made of plastic. A Joan Rivers face, attempting to deceive the world into thinking she’s Megan Fox. A world moving so fast, it almost works—one because even if they had attention spans, most humans own the observational skills of two year olds.

No Boston fan will ever own up**—Manny ain’t theah prawblem anymore. I’m sure they’ll say he never got caught copping ‘roids down by the Charles River. He is however, the true face of the MLB, smug and bloated, and they only suspend him for 50 games? ha ha ha. Manny loves a vacation, he comes back well rested (pumped full of some new undetectable designer dope) for the stretch run and leads a slumping LA to the playoffs again. This is almost a strategic gift! Blow up baseball and bring the Dodgers back to Brooklyn—if you rebuild it they will come. But you won’t, you’re too fucking stupid. And so are your ugly, dumbass friends.

† Ramirez tested positive for a female(!) fertility drug HCG, or human chorionic gonadotropin. HCG is popular with some steroid users because it can mitigate the side effects of ending a cycle of the drugs. Going off steroids can stop testosterone production, decreasing sperm count & shrinking testicles. Manny apparently wants to maintain those big balls as well as cheat…

* Niether Roberts nor SI printed a retraction—creeps.

** Denis Leary, Doris Kearns Goodwin & Jonathan Schwartz might, but they are exceptions because they are exceptional.

** Simon Pegg appears as Scotty in the new Star Trek movie—Alvin & the Chipmunks reference 110% gratuitous, though a nuts connotation is implicit

The new Star Trek movie (US release May 8 ) has a lot of really good things going for it. I have not seen it yet, but I will. This, despite the fact that along with some very poignant secondary casting i.e. fulfilling a dying academic’s last wish, director J.J. Abrams has included that pretentious prat, T. Perry.

Zoe Saldana portrays Lt. Nyota Uhura—I’m sure Perry is heartbroken he didn’t get the role. Does he play her mother? He’d be perfect as a Klingon—but they don’t wear mumus and eye shadow. This clown must have video of major Hollywood players doing donkey shows. Fortunately the rest of the cast can actually act, I’m praying to Zeus & Apollo the hacktor CD, has limited screentime. Somehow, I knew those old airline barfbags would come in handy.

AS for the old gag reflex, personal events kept me from commenting on the Yankees woes. Even a curmudgeon fifty-plus year baseball fan, knows not to get too negged out in April. Yet one can’t ignore the obvious. I admit I was wrong—this 2009 season’s version of the Yankees bullpen will not shine. Wow–do they suck. And A.J. Burnett, who had appeared to be the only Free Agent acquisition who came to play, totally blew up against the Rat Sox. Sorry, I guess he was nervous once he found out I was watching. I won’t do that again.

Good news is, once they leveled the A Rod-less Yanks, the Beanotown Nine has lost a bunch of games. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch. I have no doubt both teams will be brawling against each other down the stretch. If Alex Rodriguez survives and hits, and Mark Teixiera finally shows up in the same batters box as his bat, the Yankees will be in it at the end. That said—

Selena “The Middle-aged Witch” Roberts’ book about A Rod has crawled out from under its slimy rock. She is the same Sports Illustrated writer who jack-rabbited a story accusing the Duke lacrosse team of party rape several years ago. Those student athletes have since been exonerated of crime, but not after Roberts made her tainted bones off them. Alex Rodriguez and I are not acquainted—but I’m guessing he might be guilty of using illegal, performance enhancing drugs. The key word, as always, in all this crap, is illegal. Because — corrective lenses for players with vision problems or batting gloves for players with sweaty palms are in fact, performance enhancing. As are bigger baseball gloves, tighter wound baseballs and @#%&*! lights for night games—of which there are way too many.

Having gone to journalism school, and been in trouble for my own work ( a few misplaced commas and ummm, some verbiage ), I know what it’s all about. Selena Roberts is only doing what comes natural, like the scorpion did to the frog. I personally chose not to be a reporter. Though, if I could nail Tyler Perry for something I would do it. But unlike Roberts, I wouldn’t write a book. I’d go to Mr. (?) Perry and tell him—if you stop making movies – I won’t publish. Quid Pro Quo Vadis.

I am so worn out with people pontificating, who have never read a book, much less studied history. Even in their own ( and only ) area, of so called expertise. Yet, they look at everything through a toy microscope, while seemingly observing nothing beyond the obvious at the macro level, around them. They do have a name—they are the sports talk hosts, sports writers & the majority of sports fans. There is an old saying: If you can’t be a sport, at least wear a sport’s coat. Sport’s coat collection keeps getting pilfered by the aforementioned. AND they are ill-fitting.

ESPN is purportedly a sports and entertainment network. Most of their program content panders to the NFL and the Boston Red Sox. They have all the instincts of piranha with blood in the water. The current Alex Rodriguez story of steroid abuse, is right in their wheelhouse. They are tracking down A Rod cousins with the pit-bull tenacity of a yenta trying to get a match for an unmarried Hasidic woman pushing 30.

Only a lead with a heavy anti-Yankee angle could drag ESPN kicking & screaming from sucking up to the NFL. The National Football League—where 104 players guilty of steroid use would be the results for just two of their teams. Admittedly, it would be believable if an NFL player had no idea what substance he was shooting up. Baseball players are not all that bright, but compared to football & the other sports ( tennis the one exception ), they are virtual MENSA members.

Oh yes, ESPN is having a field day with A Rod’s downfall. Every move is analyzed, every facial expression critiqued. I can’t help but wonder how they’d have handled this, had Rodriguez become a Boston Red Sox player. Something which almost happened, but for the greed of the Major League Players Association.

Here’s how I imagine ESPN handling the same story—only A Rod is on the A Sox, er I mean Red Sox. . ..

Sports Center— A MLB player, whose anonymity is legally protected, has allegedly tested positive for a substance. This is ESPN Sports Center. Now back to Mike, Mike, Mike, plus Mike with special guest—Other Mike.

MLB, in a well deserved & hypocritical hissy over the ongoing steroid revelations, has a collateral problem. The big time players, such as Alex Rodriguez, Roger Clemens & Barry Bonds have careers worthy of baseball’s legendary Hall of Fame. Well, they did until the cover got blown off. Sure, you could keep them out. But seriously folks.

However, I am proposing the solution. This is hereby Copyrighted 2009 by JukeofUrl Productions. In place of the team logo the player was most associated with, the plaque will show him with this on his cap >

Here’s what it looks like

Steroid Era Cap

Here’s how it might look on the plaque

HOF Plaque version

In your hearts, you know I’m right. Don’t thank me all at once.

AND may the Yankees never win another game if the following is not a fact: I once played on a softball team sponsored by a local pharmacy. You guessed it–that was the logo. I loved that hat.

Sports Illustrated has prepared a retraction regarding the revelation Alex Rodriguez used steroids. It will state that their reporter mistook the abbreviation Anon for Arod, saying- ” Hey, I was in the dark and had blinders on. . ..” Oddly the rest of the list was 103 names, all John Doe. In light of the fact Mr. Rodriguez has since admitted use of a PED, it’s all moot. Once again proving the old adage, don’t believe everything you read, and only half of what you see. QED

In a related story, there is no truth to the rumor Boston fans have thought of a new heckle. Adding the word ” sucks ” to everything, is still the sum total of their wit.